Researching a Local Heroin Market as a Complex Adaptive System

This project applies agent-based modeling (ABM) techniques to better understand the operation, organization, and structure of a local heroin market. The simulation detailed was developed using data from an 18-month ethnographic case study. The original research, collected in Denver, CO during the 1990s, represents the historic account of users and dealers who operated in the Larimer area heroin market. Working together, the authors studied the behaviors of customers, private dealers, street-sellers, brokers, and the police, reflecting the core elements pertaining to how the market operated. After evaluating the logical consistency between the data and agent behaviors, simulations scaled-up interactions to observe their aggregated outcomes. While the concept and findings from this study remain experimental, these methods represent a novel way in which to understand illicit drug markets and the dynamic adaptations and outcomes they generate. Extensions of this research perspective, as well as its strengths and limitations, are discussed.     

Cinemusical meanings in motion pictures: commerce,art, and Brando loyalty … or … De Niro,My God,To Thee

• The theme of art‐versus‐commerce has surfaced in many motion pictures but serves here to juxtapose three otherwise disparate films that draw upon the power of jazz as a force toward the dramatic development of character, plot, central themes, and other cinemusical meanings. Specifically, via the significance of its ambi‐diegetic music, New York, New York (1977) shows the elevation of artistic integrity (Robert De Niro as Jimmy Doyle) over commercialism (Liza Minnelli as Francine Evans). In Heart Beat (1980), the raw honesty of a committed‐but‐doomed creative genius (Art Pepper) provides nondiegetic music that signifies the self‐destructive degradation of a key protagonist (Nick Nolte as Neal Cassady). Finally, in The Score (2001), the appealing nature of diegetic jazz in a cinemusically‐enriched nightclub environment helps to explain why a soon‐to‐be‐ reformed criminal (Robert De Niro, again, as Nick Wells) would risk everything in collaboration with two bizarre partners (Marlon Brando as Max Baron and Ed Norton as Jack Teller) in hopes of a payoff big enough to allow him to retire from a lucrative career in crime in order to run his legitimate jazz venue and to settle down with his true love (Angela Bassett as Diane Boesman).

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attention and memory in children with brain tumors.

The Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test was utilized to examine attention, learning, and memory abilities in 42 children with cerebellar (N = 18) and third ventricle tumors (N = 24). Children with cerebellar tumors exhibited significant auditory attentional impairments and displayed adequate encoding and retrieval across subsequent learning and memory trials. In contrast, children with third ventricle tumors exhibited average auditory attentional abilities, but they displayed mild encoding deficits across trials 2-5. Furthermore, the third ventricle group's compromised performance on the delayed recall trial and average performance on the delayed recognition trial is suggestive of underlying retrieval deficits.     

Epistemic motives and cultural conformity: need for closure, culture, and context as determinants of conflict judgments

Three studies support the proposal that need for closure (NFC) involves a desire for consensual validation that leads to cultural conformity. Individual differences in NFC interact with cultural group variables to determine East Asian versus Western differences in conflict style and procedural preferences (Study 1), information gathering in disputes (Study 2), and fairness judgment in reward allocations (Study 3). Results from experimental tests indicate that the relevance of NFC to cultural conformity reflects consensus motives rather than effort minimization (Study 2) or political conservatism (Study 3). Implications for research on conflict resolution and motivated cultural cognition are discussed.     

The effect of verbal and graphic feedback on the data-recording behavior of direct care trainers

This study investigated the effects of individually delivered verbal and graphic (process) feedback alone and in combination with praise on the data-recording behavior of 12 direct-care trainers (DCTs) who recorded their reinforcer deliveries contingent on their clients' appropriate behavior. Also, the study examined the effect of the time of feedback delivery on subsequent DCT data-recording behavior. Correspondence checks were conducted and a three-phase multiple condition experimental design was implemented. All feedback conditions produced a difference in data-recording behavior. Time of delivery of feedback also appeared to have an effect on the amount of data recorded. ©1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fear of Failure Biases Affective and Attentional Responses to Lexical and Pictorial Stimuli

The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether attentional biases would be noticed among individuals differing in levels of fear of failure (FF) as they viewed pictorial and lexical stimuli depicting various affective content. Indices of natural selective attention, namely, viewing time and self-reported affect, were assessed in 137 college students during free viewing picture and word presentation conditions. As hypothesized, FF was (a) negatively associated with self-reported dominance and valence for failure- and unpleasant-themed stimuli, and (b) positively associated with arousal ratings for unpleasant pictures. Although initially suppressed by neuroticism, partial correlation coefficients revealed a significant positive relationship between FF and viewing time for failure pictures. Results are discussed in the context of current theories of emotional reactivity and attentional biases pertaining to the nature of FF. Recommendations are provided for future research to elaborate the mechanisms involved in detrimental effects of FF.     

Interchangeability of Results From Computerized and Traditional Administration of the BIDR: Convenience Can Match Reality

Although interchangeability of results across computer and paper modes of administration is commonly assumed, recent meta-analyses and individual studies continue to reveal mean differences in scores for measures of socially desirable responding (SDR). Results from these studies have also failed to include new methods of scoring and crucial aspects of scaling, reliability, validity, and administration emphasized in professional standards for assessment that are essential in establishing equivalence. We addressed these shortcomings in a comprehensive, repeated measures investigation for 6 ways of scoring the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR), one of the most frequently administered companion measures of SDR in research and practice. Results for many previously unexamined, standards-driven aspects of scaling, reliability, and validity strongly supported the interchangeability of scores across modes of administration. Computer questionnaires also took considerably less time to complete and were overwhelmingly favored by respondents in relation to physical characteristics of the measures, appraisals of the the assessment experience, and perceived quality of information obtained. Collectively, these results highlight the importance of following professional standards when constructing and administering computerized assessments and the evolution of computer technology in providing viable, effective, and accepted platforms for administering and scoring the BIDR in numerous ways.     

Framingham vascular age is associated with worse cognitive performance in the middle-aged and elderly

“Normal” age-related cognitive decline has been associated with cardiovascular risk factors. Framingham Vascular Age is age-normed cardiovascular risk which may help communicate risk to patients and identify those at relatively higher risk. We aim to assess the association between Framingham Vascular Age and cognition. 346 “healthy” participants (57±10 years) without neuropsychiatric disorders or clinical manifestations of cardiovascular disease were studied. Cognition was evaluated using the Brief Memory and Executive Test and Framingham Vascular Age was calculated. The association between Framingham Vascular Age and cognitive performance was determined through General Linear Models to control for covariates. Framingham Vascular age was associated with poorer Memory and Executive Function/Processing Speed indices (p= 0.019 and p<0.001, respectively). We conclude Framingham Vascular Age is associated with worse Executive Function/Processing Speed and Memory. Vascular Age may help identify patients at higher risk of age-related cognitive decline with implications for communicating the morbidity associated with cardiovascular risk.